KENYAN SOLAR COMPANY, D.lIGHT, HAS RAISED $22.5MILLION IN FUNDING

10-year old off-grid solar startup, d.light, has secured over $22million in funding to grow its PayGo business. d.light had earlier announced in June that it was making its Pay As You Go solar financing platform available for licensing to partners and distributors. PayGo’s aim is to expand solar home solutions to the over 2 billion people worldwide without access to reliable power.
The funding round was in three parts with $15million raised from KawiSafi Ventures Fund, Energy Access Ventures, Omidyar Network and NewQuest Capital Partners; a further $2.5million in debt funding raised from SunFunder; and a grant of $5million raised from Shell Foundation, the U.S. Agency for International Development – Development Innovation Ventures (USAID-DIV) and United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF).
The company has evolved from its first prototype solar lantern to award winning energy products providing off-grid solar energy to millions of households worldwide.
CEO Ned Tozun said, “We’re extremely grateful for the partnership of such esteemed investors as we work to make solar and energy available for all households in the developing world. Our solar products have enabled tens of millions of customers to significantly enhance their homes and supplement their incomes. With this funding, we look forward to helping even more people living off the grid to achieve better quality of life through solar ownership.”
With this new funding, d.light hopes to reach 100 million people by 2020.